1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vacuum pump including a housing having an inner chamber, a control unit including control elements for controlling electronic and electrical components located in the inner chamber of the housing, and a separation member for separating the inner chamber in which an underpressure prevails, from an environment in which the vacuum pump is located.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In vacuum pumps of the type described above, electronic and electrical components, which are located in the housing inner chamber includes, e.g., electrical windings of a motor or Hall probes that detect the rotation of the shaft and the like. The components, which are arranged within the vacuum pump, are controlled by control elements located outside of the vacuum pump. These control elements are often located in a control unit. The inner chamber of such vacuum pumps is subjected to pressure that is below the atmospheric pressure.
This means that the electrical conductors that provide an electrical connection between the components, which are located in the inner chamber, and the electronic control elements, which are located outside of the vacuum pump, must be guided through hermetically sealed leadthroughs from the inner chamber to the outside.
The conventional solution of the state of the art consists in the provision of a hermetically sealed plug on the vacuum pump. The plug has pins extending into the inner chamber of the vacuum pump and to which wires, which lead to the components, are soldered. In the last years, the size and the shape of the vacuum pump play a greater and greater role. Though the desired function of the vacuum pump and the control unit are important, the combined system should generally be compact. The control unit should be adapted to the housing of the vacuum pump and, thus, should be formed taking into account the shape of the pump housing. In other words, the housing of the vacuum pump sets the basic parameters of the control unit. With this, the plug, which is used in the state of the art pumps, presents a drawback as it complicates the designing of the control unit and occupies a large space.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a vacuum pump with a separation member between the inner chamber and the surrounding environment which would ensure a vacuum-tight leadthrough the conducting means which is susceptible to fewer mounting errors and which would provide for a flexible realization of electrical signal communication.